From Mother Jones:
Trump called her decision "a disgrace." She's faced death threats. She just won her primary.
In July, St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner revealed that she had found a terrifying note on her car. “I hope you hang from a tree,” it read.
Gardner, the first Black woman to serve as circuit attorney in St. Louis, was elected four years ago after pledging to make the criminal justice system more fair for people of color. (Like a district attorney, a circuit attorney is a chief prosecutor for a particular jurisdiction.) While in office, she has faced incredible pushback. Most recently, Trump objected when she filed criminal charges against a white couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters walking through the couple’s gated community in June calling her decision to prosecute them “a disgrace.”
The hate mail quickly flooded her inbox. “It is YOU who are the racist, unfairly targeting white McCloskeys for exercising their 2nd Amendment rights,” someone emailed her, according to the Washington Post. “U really need to be run out of town you black b—!”
On Tuesday, Gardner was up for reelection. She faced Mary Pat Carl, a white prosecutor who used to work in the same office but resigned from that post in 2017 after Gardner became circuit attorney. In some ways, the race was a test of whether Gardner’s reformist bona fides can withstand the harsh backlash from Republicans, who have questioned her at every turn—offering a stark reminder of the double standards that progressive Black women often face when they’re elected as district attorneys or circuit attorneys.
Historically, a chief prosecutor’s decision on a case is the last word. But in Gardner’s case, politicians and courts have pushed back against her power again and again.
Gardner won the Democratic primary, taking 60 percent of the vote. She is now heavily favored to win the general election in November against her Republican opponent.
“Tonight, the voters of St. Louis used their voice to send a message that they want to continue on the path of reform we started together four years ago,” she said after the results came in.